Date: November 4, 1930
Location: Northampton, Massachusetts
(Original document available here)
The campaign of 1930 has closed. Results of most elections are known. Some people will be disappointed and some will be elated. But there will be enough representatives of different parties holding office during the next two years so that no very violent changes in policy will be made.
We have a tendency to be too indifferent before primaries and elections and too critical after. Public officers can and do exercise large influence over our daily life but the main course of events is in our own hands. We can be helped or harmed very materially by the government but we can yet take care of ourselves, if we will, under any government we are likely to have.
The main duty of the citizen is to accept cheerfully the result of an election, support the laws and Constitution as they stand at the time, and loyally co-operate with the government. We make our own government. If we fail it is our own fault. Under our system a nation of good citizens cannot have a bad government. If we give the best that is in us to our private affairs we shall have little need of governmental aid.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge Says: Dispatches Written by Former-President Coolidge and Syndicated to Newspapers in 1930-1931 (Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation)
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of David Diao who prepared this document for digital publication.